An assessment of recreational bank angling in the Free State Province, South Africa, using licence sale and tournament data

Authors

  • LM Barkhuizen 1. Free State Department of Economic, Small Business Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Private Bag X20801, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa; 2. Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa
  • OLF Weyl 1. South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), Private Bag X 1015, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa; 2. Centre for Invasion Biology, SAIAB, Private Bag X 1015, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa
  • JG van As Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v43i3.09

Keywords:

recreational, fisheries, catch, effort, participation

Abstract

Recreational angling is an important form of utilisation of inland fisheries in South Africa but there is little information on this sector. The objective of this study was to provide an assessment of recreational bank angling in the Free State Province using licence sale and tournament data. During 2013 and 2014, 8 256 and 7 710 angling licences were sold, respectively. This represents a decline of 76% compared to the total licence sales in the Province in 1971. Tournament catch and effort data were obtained for 4 796 tournaments that were held on 17 dams from 1974 to 2014. Reported tournament effort decreased by 67% from 8 548 tournament days in 1998 to 2 828 days in 2014. Tournament catch composition was dominated by alien common carp Cyprinus carpio. Overall, this species comprised 81% of the weight and 77% of the number of fish landed during tournaments making it the most important angling species. The recent observed increase in subsistence angling could not be included in the analysis as participants are mostly not licensed. Alternative methods are therefore required if total catch and effort are to be estimated.

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Published

2017-07-28

Issue

Vol. 43 No. 3 July (2017): Water SA

Section

Research paper

License

Copyright (c) 2017 LM Barkhuizen, OLF Weyl, JG van As

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

The content of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence.  Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal under the terms of this Licence, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, provided the source is attributed. Copyright is retained by the authors.

How to Cite

LM Barkhuizen, OLF Weyl and JG van As (2017) “An assessment of recreational bank angling in the Free State Province, South Africa, using licence sale and tournament data”, Water SA, 43(3 July). doi:10.4314/wsa.v43i3.09.